(I didn’t have the heart to take a picture of the boats.)
There are two photographs hanging in the examining room in my doctor’s office. One shows at least twenty-five slick, scrubbed-clean, expensive sailboats all moored in front of a slick, scrubbed-clean, expensive condominium complex on the waterfront: no human beings in the picture. The other is a nature scene with all the typical props: flowers, rocks, running stream, trees, mountains, blue sky; no human beings in the picture.
These two “beautiful” photos have very different messages about silence, solitude and simplicity. There are all kinds of things that disturb me about the boat picture, but what haunts me is that it is lifeless. In fact, it is a picture death and all I can think of is some nuclear disaster. The nature scene exudes life energy, which is just what we need when we go for a check-up. We don’t want our doctor practicing silence, solitude or simplicity when she is checking us--but a good report will put us in the 3Ss mode.
These two “beautiful” photos have very different messages about silence, solitude and simplicity. There are all kinds of things that disturb me about the boat picture, but what haunts me is that it is lifeless. In fact, it is a picture death and all I can think of is some nuclear disaster. The nature scene exudes life energy, which is just what we need when we go for a check-up. We don’t want our doctor practicing silence, solitude or simplicity when she is checking us--but a good report will put us in the 3Ss mode.